ABSTRACT
‘Multimodality’ is a term that is now widely used in the academic world. The number of publication titles featuring the term has grown exponentially since it was first coined in the mid-1990s. Since then, a myriad of conferences, monographs, edited volumes and other academic discussion forums have been produced that are dedicated to multimodality. Signs of its becoming a shorthand term for a distinct field include the publication of the first edition of the Handbook of Multimodal Analysis (Jewitt, 2009), now a revised second edition (Jewitt, 2014), the launch of the Routledge Series in Multimodality Studies (2011) and the launch of a journal titled Multimodal Communication (2012). These and many other outlets inviting contributions in the area of multimodality provide platforms for scholars working in different disciplines, including semiotics, linguistics, media studies, new literacy studies, education, sociology and psychology, addressing a wide range of different research questions.
